Lore
How does the Wicked Dance stance from Knife Basics interact with Ghost Basics and the Mist-Dancer's Spellshroud ability? I.e. Can a character with all of the above who is already in Wicked Dance stance cast a 0-level spell,spend an AD, and move twice their speed without breaking the stance? This is exactly the kind of thing your GM should be answering, as I can see multiple perfectly valid answers for each combination as more than one such combination of them may well crop up in the same game, and even in the same session, based on circumstances and the narrative at hand. That said, your reading is technically correct. Remember, however, that free actions are specifically and universally limited to GM fiat. I might allow that once for fun, twice to help the story along, but the second I smelled abuse the character would suddenly be operating on a healthy diet of zero free actions. What is the benefit of making a Conceal Action check with the Mist-Dancer's Shadow's Hand ability? There's no explicit action for picking pockets, it's just an action of 'I take that out of his pocket' with a Conceal Action check to cover it up. So long as you can still see what you're doing (thus, Line of Sight), you are intended to be able to pick pockets, open locks, and so forth out to 30ft. Stashing is the opposite action (say, hiding something in a person's pocket), but the same holds true. If you pick a pocket or stash an item from a distance using shadow's hand, the item is gained or stashed at range. As there are 'standard move actions' and several other 'movement actions'), I'm having trouble interpreting what a character in Wicked Dance (or one of the other 5' only stances) can and can't do. For example, does the Handle Item action (a movement action) break the stance? There are Movement actions in the game (see page 218) and they're specifically what the wicked dance stance is prohibiting. Of course, one of the reasons we leave these things a bit open to GM interpretation is that a GM can and should feel empowered to extend that reach if, say, a combo arises in his game that's detrimental to play. For example, I might rule that anything involving significant movement of any kind would break the stance, even if otherwise protected by magic or other abilities. The game's flexible like that. Which trumps: a higher result (19+x1=y1) or a threat/critical success (20+x2=y2), for x1 > x2 & y1 > y2? A natural 20 has to actually produce the higher total in order to be activated as a critical success. Why does Adventurer’s Luck feat specify applying only once per roll? Does this mean that the party only rolls twice for one roll in a given set of rolls? Or is this meant to prevent some absurd interpretation generating an infinite number of rolls? Mainly to prevent multiple characters in a party from trying to apply it to the same roll. Can a Soldier with Cleave B/M/S, Greatsword B/M/S, Contempt, Darting Weapon, Flashing Weapon and the class abilities Most Deadly and Decisive Attack activate a critical targeting a standard NPC with tough I for 0 action dice as if he has spent 2 (killing the standard character)? (-1 from Cleave Supremacy, -1 from Most Deadly) Yes. Both abilities are -1 AD cost, minimum zero - you're just activating a 2 die crit for -2 dice. Now what if he used the Greatsword trick Spiral Cutter with 5 standard characters in range — would only one critical activate, or could you normally have spent 5 separate action dice to activate the threat on each of the five targets? With abilities that affect multiple targets, the rule is you can activate the crit against multiple targets by spending more action dice: "This cost is paid separately for each hit, even when multiple hits are scored with a single attack or action". With his -2 cost, he could crit each target once for 3 action dice, or kill them for a total of 8. Since I don't know how that one will rule, we'll get rid of Tough and say that he kills all 5 of those Standard Characters with damage alone, but he's got +1 reach with his Claymore and so there are more standards within a 5ft's step so now, how does killing those 5 interact with Cleave B/M/S? It's only one attack, so it makes sense it would only give one extra, but with the wording I could see argument for it giving him multiple. This I would rule entirely based on circumstance and abuse level. If the player used spiral cutter and killed 5 guys a huge mob of enemies was charging towards him and wanted to 5ft step into the mob and keep swinging I would totally let him. The visual is fantastic, and I can't see it coming up too often. Can you used Blessed to give a first level Priest access to the second step of a given alignment? Blessed specifically only grants the 1st step of a Path, as does Acolyte (1st-level Priest ability). So no, but the combination can obviously used to gain the first step in two seperate Paths. Does the Martial Arts feat apply to natural attacks? In the base set of rules, NAs are pretty much unarmed attacks, since they use unarmed attack rolls, apply Strength, etc.However, the language is left vague because we wanted to be sure the GM felt empowered to divide Natural Attacks out from Unarmed if they were so inclined: Most NAs are equal to or better than melee weapons as non-natural attackers are getting just a 1d3 or 1d4 to start with, while evena tail-slapper is getting 1d8 AND Reach +1 even at grade I. How do feats and abilities granting action dice interact with those that determine their effect based on the number of dice you have? A character option only increase uses of others based on your starting action dice is if they specifically denote the bonus action dice they give are starting action dice. Thus the Fortunate feat — which only grants its die at the beginning of a session — would not apply, while the More Than Luck ability from the Adventurer Specialty would. Does the core ability for the soldier interact in any positive way with Favoured Gear? Makes it Three Dice? Four? Some abilities allow you to roll 2 dice when you spend 1 action die. When two or more of these abilities apply to the same roll, you still only roll 2 dice for each action die spent. Yes, this is under Class Abilities and not the feat itself. Favoured Gear is one of those rare spots where a core abilty style option comes up outside of core abilities. If you multiclass and gain a new level, can you buy ranks in class skills of your other classes or just the one you leveled up in? You can buy ranks in your Origin skills at any level but you can only buy ranks in the class skills for the Class you have just selected for levelling up. Can player-controlled NPCs have spells with Prep costs as long as the xp value = 1/4 cost is factored into their final cost? Don't see why not. Does a character automatically remove the bleeding condition if they have bandages? Or are bandages a required item to have before attempting the Medicine roll? Using a bandage on a character removes the bleeding condition, no medicine check needed. What is the correct sequence for using Fencing Basics to gain the free attack it grants? Being attacked removes flat-footedness, so the sequence would need to be either (a) 1st 1/2 action: Attack target as normal. 2nd 1/2 action: Trip the target; assuming success, target is now sprawled. Free action: Attack again for half damage since the target is adjacent and flat footed, or (b) 1st 1/2 action: Trip the target; assuming success, target is now sprawled. Free action: Attack for half damage since the target is adjacent and flat footed. 2nd 1/2 action: Attack target again, as normal. Would the Touche! trick and the Cleave Basics feat work together? What about Touche! and En Guarde! On the first combo of Touche and Cleave, yes, because Touche is an Attack Trick while Cleave is a straight out free attack. En Garde! however is a Total Defense trick and you can only apply one trick per action. More importantly, En Garde does not generate a free attack (to which you could apply Touche) — it automatically deals damage. Very different, as tricks are applied only to actions and no action is being generated. Does the conversion to fire damage offered by Elemental Heritage (fire) result in half damage or not? The feat specifies there's no penalty to the attack, but it doesn't specify about the damage so it is still halved. If the phrase said "without penalty" I would rule that the attack suffers neither the -4 or the 1/2 damage, but this case is very specifically singling out the attack penalty. Do you get a Crafting focus at Rank 1, 4, 8, 12, etc.? Yes With a breath weapon's line attack I can sort of see the potential for a miss, but the Greater Breath featimplies you can still miss with a cone or a sphere, although I have a harder time visualizing how? Mainly, I see it as firing your blast too late, or after the character is behind intervening cover. The Floater feat specifies a 20' ceiling from what? Does surface composition matter? Can you float over a body of water? If so, when you float from a body of water onto a ship with a deck higher than the water, do you then ascend to 20' above the deck? When you fly a plane, how is your elevation measured? I would say from the closest surface below you. What that surface is composed of would hardly matter, I would think... I suppose I imagine it like having 20 ft long telekinetic "legs" below you, so if you travel move from one surface to another 5 ft lower, your ceiling also lowers by 5 ft. I use the monkey grip stance from spear basics to wield a normally two handed weapon in one hand, does it count as a one handed melee weapon for the purposes of the two weapon fighting feat? Sure. However, the weapon's statistics do not change — just how you use it. How does the lumbering quality interact with the two headed species feat? In this case lumbering takes precedence - so two enemies in any configuration. Common sense point of order — you're only as capable as your worst penalty allows you to be. Are skill points gains retroactive? Like, when you increase or decrease your INT? Yes, Page 108 2nd printing state that a personal lieutenant "may not control additional characters." This includes summoned creatures, right? Yes. The party Giant (having Trample) learns Martial Arts. Does this increase the damage and the crit range of Trampling, since that uses an unarmed attack roll? Provided your GM hasn't declared natural attacks aren't considered unarmed attacks, then yes that is the intention. That's part of the reason why the damage bonus has been changed from 1d6 in the First Printing to +2 in the Second Printing. Would Unnerving Shot would apply to all three opponents taunted at once with Aggro Basics, or just one of them? I could go either way on this, and would probably rule on a case-by-case basis. Can you have two Special Construction feats, one from the Species and other one as your 1st Level feat? Unless a feat — or class ability granting it — specifically grants multiple instances in its text, a feat may only be taken once. Does Flail Mastery's Thresher Spin trick mean you hit twice and apply damage twice to the target? Or was this only intended to supplement the successes for Whirling Serpent stance? This is only for Whirling Serpent and other similar feats/tricks which key to the number of times you hit someone. What does "helper" mean for the purposes of abilities that refer to you as such? Do you actually have to succeed in the DC 15 check or is your mere presence enough to inspire greatness? Per the RAW, a helper is only a helper if he actively participates in the check (ie making the roll). Consequently, I would rule he needs to succeed on the check in order to grant the bonus to the leader, because on a crit failure a helper can also ruin the check. Helping - particularly considering the butch benefit - without taking any risk is a bit fishy to me. Is an Animal Partner gear? Specifically, does a Cavalier's Favored Gear (mount) apply to a Lancer's Lifetime Companion? Though Animal Partner is not a Gear feat, I might allow it, ruling that it had to be the character with the feat making the check (using the "gear"), rather then the "gear" itself making a check. In particular reference to the Fire Brave feat for ogres, if someone is successfully disguised as a creature of a different footprint, does their footprint change? In most cases I would say probably not — disguises change your appearance, but not your physical size. Using Disguise checks to change your combat attributes (footprint) is not really cricket, as it suddenly is becoming a cheap way of shapeshifting. The Fire Brave's ability is not the same as letting them mechanically shapeshift. Shapeshifting is a tremendously useful/powerful ability in our scale, and the Fire Brave's ability acknowledges part of those benefits — but is not intended to fully replicate them. Think of it as people subconsciously giving a 2x2 character disguised as a 1x1 a greater deal of "personal space" but they remain physically incapable of interacting with a 1x1 environment in the appropriate manner. While Crafting foci are numerous and most possibly useful in various settings, there are quite less Ride foci and many of these few just don't make any sense in several worlds. So, did I miss something here? You might consider using spare foci to grant fortes in a manner similar to weapon proficiencies. If you feel confident enough you might even consider making up some Ride tricks Rootwalkers get Thick Hide 2 and New Leaf: Ironbark grants Thick Hide 3. I assume these count as Thick Hide from two sources and grant DR 4, right? Correct. Does Ambush Basics grant its sneak attack dice to all attacks you make, or just those through an ambush check? That applies to all attacks to which you may apply sneak attack damage (ie to flat-footed opponents etc.). Does Favored Gear mean Favored Gear (pistol, military) or Favored Gear ("Old Kicker") i.e. one named individual piece of equipment and not all those of a type? The Old Kicker route is the intended interpretation. Most weapon Basics feats grant a stance, but I can't see a reference restricting them to a specific weapon or group of weapons. Does this mean I can use Turn the Millstone with my Zweihander? If a stance doesn't name a specific weapon proficiency or type, then it can be used with anything. Same goes for the weapon tricks. Any 2-handed weapon will trigger the Turn the Millstone stance. Do multiple instances of grueling and dread combatant stack? It's a possible combo at least once, via Stern & Orc Blood I would say no. What happened to Pathfinder Supremacy? It seems it now only doubles the numerical effects of a single Basics feat. Mastery and Supremacy affect all your Pathfinder Basics feats. Supremacy's benefit doesn't apply to Pathfinder Mastery. Do action die bonuses (like Lady Luck's Smile and Fortune Favors the Bold) apply to both dice or just one for abilities that allow you to 2 dice when spending an action die to boost a roll? The bonus applies to the Action Die result, not the individual dice. However, Lady Luck's Smile would trigger on either or both dice since it's expanding the detonation range. Since Blindsight is essentially superior to both Darkvision I and II, does possessing it count as meeting the requirements for character options that require some form of Darkvision? Not specifically, though I could see a GM making that call at his table. Fortune's Fool grants a bonus d4 action die each time you suffer a critical failure. Does this mean that I only gain the bonus action die when the GM activates my critical failure? Correct. The GM might not be so inclined to activate the failures of a fully kitted out Priest of Fortune, so that might be a reason to take the feat as well... sort of like critical failure protection through intimidation. I was wondering why the Two-Weapon feat tree is in the Basic Combat section, as it requires the use of actual melee weapons, rather than a feat that can be used whether you're unarmed, melee or ranged. This feat does not require they be 2 melee weapons; it just requires that you have 2 1-Handed weapons equipped. This feat can be used to shoot a pair of Hand Crossbows, fire a pair of Sidearms or even hurl a pair of Throwing Knives. The first feat deals with taking a single attack with 2 different weapons, the second is for taking 2 attacks with a single weapon. Angry Hornet would not allow you to attack twice with a hand crossbow, as it has the load quality. The same goes for the sidearms and hurled weapons. Using Two-weapon Fighting would allow you to take 2 attacks using any of those weapons. The assertion that multiple feats are covering the exact same action is incorrect. As soon as more advanced weapons, such as guns with magazines, are introduced into the Mastercraft fold, as might be expected to be seen with Spycraft 3, you very well could take 4 attacks while wielding a pair of ranged weapons. Various skill Mastery feats, and the Priest Core ability allow for re-rolls (on a limited basis). Can those re-rolls be used on errors? The Skill Feats ignore errors, but Priests does not. Ghost Mastery states you can hide in the open... how? And with Supremacy you could hide in a bare room, with dust on the floor and still nobody would notice you, since you can't be targeted by perception rolls... or am I wrong? So you don't like they can hide in the open? As with magic we don't determine the details — we presume the guy's just that good at hiding. Supremacy affects Notice/Awareness check, and Search/Perception checks. There's a rule in the invisible condition that says you can take a full round action to try and guess where someone is using Search. That's what it refers to. Does being in Berserk Stance (non-Supremacy version) interfere with using divine magic, i.e. path spells? Given you don't actually make a skill check to cast them, there's no reason why it should. Is there any reason why the Favoured Gear chain was scripted in such a fashion that it apparantly doesn't work with armour? Yes, there is: benefits to active abilites are limited by time (2 half-actions/1 full action per round) while bonuses to passive benfits are not. This is exactly the distinction that made hook work fine (bonus to active ability) and guard blow into a million tiny peices before errata. Favoured Gear benefits active abilites. What you are asking about is a benfit to passive abilites, and while both can come from gear, boosting one of them is FAR more danagerous than the other. Expect something like Favored Armour to appear in Gear for the Ages, as that's the perfect home for it. With Knife Basics it says I'm armed with all of my knives at all times. Does that mean I don't have to spend a half action to "Handle Item" and draw them if I wish to make an attack, because they all already count as armed? Yes. If you spend a skill point on spellcasting at a time of your choosing using the I can swim feat, do you also immediately get a spell of your choosing? If so, it would seem to make it a very tempting option for high Int mages Depends entirely on how acquiring spells works in your campaign. Fire Elder gives a Spell Defence equal to Intimidate Bonus that seems really low compared to the corresponding Spellcasting DCs. Is there something I have missed to make this Spell Defence worthwhile? Spell Defense is a tremendous ability. The bonuses you suggest are quite low and require minimal investment for the character (i.e. average Strength and standard skill point investment), so they shouldn't be more than minimally rewarding. Take it to the next level using a few well-chosen abilities and feats (Skill Mastery, Prodigal Skill, etc.) and these bonuses will increase quite significantly, making this feat a very interesting investment. But even then, the character is not supposed to become completely immune to magic. That would be rather gamebreaking for many campaigns. In the ranged combat feats they say "thrown weapon" as opposed to "hurled weapon". Does that mean they work with any weapon that can be thrown as long as the person has the Hurled prof to qualify? That's the intent, yes. What benefit does the Signature Gear feat provide? As there's no guarantee that your roll at the beginning of the scene would be higher than the roll you would make at the moment, I can't understand its utility as it actually negates being able to spend two AD on the roll. It reduces risk. You have a guaranteed result available should you choose to use it. Get a low number at the start of a scene? Ignore it. Get a decent number? Use it when you know it is going to get you a good enough result. Using Fortune Favors the Bold as a benchmark, Lady Luck's Smile seems kind of underpowered. Similarly, Fortune's Fool seems strictly worse than Fortunate. Am I missing anything? The effects of these three feats are very different, and while they're not precisely balanced against one another statistically, they serve very different play styles... * Fortunate statistically diminishes as your character levels, though not by much, and not universally (a bonus die used for anything other than boosting a result is just as useful no matter what level you are). * Fortune Favors the Bold also statistically diminishes as your character levels, but always guarantees you a minimum action die result when rolling, which can be especially useful with certain boosting and ability combinations. * Lady Luck's Smile again diminishes statistically (noticing a trend?) but operates a lot like an increased threat range, making every die roll more exciting. So it really depends on what you're after while building your character and playing the game. Does Glint of Madness stack with the menacing threat quality, meaning they get to target 3 opponents with their threaten maneuver? I'd absolutely allow that combo. With the Animal Partner feat, what kind of control or influence does the owner have? Is it just like having a well trained pet or is there a more of connection? The extent of all NPC control is intentionally left up to the GM. In some cases it might be near-telepathic, if the world and story allow for it. In others it might simply indicate really strong training. In all cases, as with any other NPC hireling, henchman, helper, or minion, the GM ultimately controls the character. They have opinions, goals, methods, and dreams, and none of them are any more willing to die or sacrifice their values than your garden variety player character. Are melee attacks and unarmed attacks separate things? Can someone use All-Out Attack with an unarmed attack? Unarmed attacks are not considered melee attacks. Anything that applies to one does not apply to the other. You cannot make All-Out Attacks with your fists (or claws, or whatever). Some Species feats decrease the disposition of members of other species, but only if they're aware of the species of the character with the feat. Reviled does not have that qualifier. Is that a deliberate difference? Why do the quasi-demonic Fire Braves not have reviled? Yes. The idea in most of those cases is the species can't be totally concealed, and even when it is, say visually, the character still tips his hand with various widely known characteristics and mannerisms. It's an easy fix, of course, if you would prefer to add the caveat. With the fire brave it hides it enough. Feel free to houserule it to make the loss of reviled conditional on being in disguise. Or you could have an in-world explanation. Personal Lieutenant gives you 50+Blah XP to build with. The Shapeshifter III quality, which allow the NPC to adopt the form of a PC, is 12 XP. If someone says "I basically want my PL to be the Hulk while I play Bruce Banner", do you see saying "You must have shapeshifter III" as a reasonable cost for allowing them to use the PL that way? I wouldn't let anyone use a PL that way. It's not intended to become a gateway to shapeshifting madness. It's intended to do what it says on the tin. Inventive GMs however... If a character has taken 6 vitality damage and the Mend result is '6', is all 6 vitality healed or is 2 vitality healed and the 2 subdual and 2 wound healing lost? Personally I run it using the precept that if you get healed for more than your damage, the excess is just lost, not unlike casting Cure Wounds II on a guy who is down 10 vitality. After you heal 10 vitality, the remaining 10 doesn't get converted over to wounds just because he is now full. Mainly because this obviates the possibility of abuse, and because I like wound damage to matter. However as a designer for the game I wouldn't make it a set in stone rule, as some tables may benefit from it going the other way. Is a running jump's minimum 10 ft before making the jump included in the time required for the jump check, or do you have to move that 10+ in one half action, then make the jump in the second? For the purposes of preventing ridiculous combos I'm not seeing yet and don't want to consider, let's call it the latter. Does the Lava-Born's conversion of unarmed or melee damage to heat damage ignore DR? My guess is that you inflict the damage (which must have beaten DR to be inflicted) then apply it as heat, and it becomes subdual damage. Correct? Like normal damage conversion you have to decide if you are doing it before hand. So you choose to hit for heat damage, roll as normal and if successful you deal 1/2 normal damage as Heat damage and their DR applies if applicable (Heat Resistance on certain armours). The feat doesn't automatically apply the damage type to your attacks, so you still just do normal lethal (or subdual) damage. It just adds the damage type to the list of types you can convert damage to, and removes the -4 penalty for that type only. . The reason for the rule you mention is to clarify what happens when, for example, a troll hits someone with a piece of flaming timber, which would logically be inflicting both lethal damage (or subdual damage, if that's how the GM rolls) and fire damage. Fantasy Craft flatly omits any chance of damage multiplication via this loophole, but favors the attacker in letting him or her choose the single type of damage inflicted This would also happen if for some reason you had a magic weapon that inflicted two different types of damage, or whenever else that corner case might come up. It does not, however, cover damage conversion, which is an entirely different process involving one single damage type turning into another (i.e. there's only one damage type in play at any given time). I just want to make sure I'm not missing something... There is no auto fail on a 1 or auto success on a 20, right? For any roll? Yup, that's the rules as written. A lot of tables however seem to prefer to ignore it in favour of the usual auto fail/success from the parent OGL/d20 ruleset though, including the possibility of gaining an error on what would otherwise be a successful check. Does the Striking taalent's ability to Distract up to three opponents stack with the "Fan Service" feat, which causes Standard characters to become fixated? As written all three are fixated. Also, each target is rolling separately versus the single Distract roll and the sneak attack and critical hit things are explicitly called out, so it's not necessarily a general rule. As best I can determine, once the prep-time has passed, an Ambush check itself is by definition a free action. Is this correct? It's a 1-minute check where the roll doesn't come into play until the end, but yeah, same difference (except for rules that apply to free actions — those don't apply to Ambush checks, if that's what you were thinking. Your 1 minute (or 2 rounds) however are taken up fully by "preparing" the ambush. If you're launching an ambush in the middle of combat, what counts as preparing is entirely situational and must be adjudicated by the GM on a case-by-case basis. How is the improved stability granted by the Horse Nation feat intended to work? The language seems to imply that you benefit from it all the time while astride rather than only when acting as a mounted character. The key words there are "when mounted." The second clause only applies when you're acting as a mounted character, not when you're a passenger. For the Animal Partner and Personal Lieutenant feats, does the 50 XP + all of the relevant feats include the feat itself? Yes. If the only Terrain feat he had was AP, he would have 55 XP to spend. As it happens, a warhorse is 55xp therefore a 1st level Lancer can get one right out the gate. Do the 2 points of Edge from the Lucky Break feat disappear at the end of the first combat and are unavailable if a second combat breaks out in the same scene? Yes, this is the case. Lucky Break is giving you an additional 2 Edge every time the story refreshes, which is different from every time you get into a fight. It's a subtle distinction but one that gives the GM a lot more control over how the feat comes into play. Should the Personal Lieutenant be treated as a Contact for the times it can be used during an adventure (1 scene/adv)? Is this to be decided by the GM? The GM certainly has the prerogative to apply/manipulate NPCs at his or her table as works best for the game. That said, the intent with the Personal Lieutenant feat is that this is a sidekick character — someone who travels with you and is generally there all the time, like Tonto is to the Lone Ranger, or in a more fantasy-oriented example, Sam is to Frodo (or if you subscribe to the Frodo-as-hollow-caricature theory, the other way 'round). Contacts are distinctly different in that they're friends, colleagues, and allies who can occasionally be called upon to help. Threats and critical successes page 65. The 4 examples are good, but when you have 4 degrees of success, depending on how many action dice you roll, isn't that a bit vague? It can be difficult to correctly gauge what a level of success actually is. It's based on how many action dice you spend to active the critical. Dice spent are only rolled if the rule in question says spend and roll. Most of the time your players will only spend one die to activate a critical. What I typically do is let the player suggest the critical success and then tell them how many action dice it will cost. Similarly, when activating NPC critical failures I ask them what they want to happen and then tell them how much it costs. It's really up to you (assuming you are the GM) If you think a situation doesn't warrant more than two levels of success, that's all there are. Just make sure that you don't let your characters waste 4 action dice in that case, let them know that they don't need to spend more than two if they try. It's ok for players to spend action dice and fail but, in my opinion, it's not ok for them to spend action dice that can't change anything. The text for the Jump check says "These values are based on a Speed of 30; for other Speeds, calculate proportionately". How do you calculate this? Base speed is 30. Character is moving at 40. That is 10 more than 30. 10 is one third of 30. The character moving at 40 is moving one and one third times the base speed of 30. So he jumps one and one third the distance. Complexity is described as "A number from 1 to 50 noting the skill required to craft the item (see page 72), and a letter code indicating the minimum amount of continuous Downtime needed to craft the item (D for 1 day, W for 1 week, M for 1 month, or Y for 1 year)". How do I read this value? They are different values presented together for the sake of brevity. For example, an item with Complexity of 12M = Crafting DC 12, minimum Downtime of 1 Month to create. Further, the first paragraph under Build Or Improve Object on page 72 says you can make items with a Complexity less than or equal to your total crafting bonus plus your level. So at level 3, to make an astrolabe you need a minimum Crafting bonus (Ranks + Int bonus and other mods) of +9 to make up a value of 12. Feats and other character options can increase your bonus, letting you craft more. When you make the Crafting check, use the chart at the top of page 73: although you can't fail this roll, you'll only have created the astrolabe if the amount silver value in the Month column exceeds its value. Otherwise, you'll need another month and another roll. Would it break anything if I changed the Finesse quality to affect the attack rather than damage check? Is there a feat or something I haven't come across that allows you to use Dex modifier to attack instead of the Str modifier? The Deft Swing trick in the Adventure Companion is one of several attribute-substituting tricks that in this case lets you use Dex instead of Str to attack, but it requires a minimum Strength of 13 and a forte with the weapon type being used, and is obviously a trick so you can't use other tricks to modify the attack. Martial Arts/Master's Art lets you use your chosen attribute for unarmed attack and damage rolls. This was all designed to minimise d20's treating of Dexterity as more or less a "god-stat". Resolve is based on Constitution? Surely "keeping one’s cool under pressure" should be Wisdom (Willpower)? Keeping the heartrate down, controlling blood pressure, and keeping the breathing steady — all things that benefit from enhanced physical fitness (and have their baseline derived from physical fitness). The only attribute that really covers that is Constitution. Wisdom (and its Will Save) are used for saves vs fully-fledged Fear. Also, you can (and should) swap attributes when it makes sense to do so. If you feel the resolve check is more mental or spiritual in nature, it's perfectly fine to say it's Resolve (Wis) instead of (Con), as per the sidebar on Fantasy Craft' page 67. Action Dice can be used to boost untrained skill checks. Does that mean you can now attempt DCs above the DC 15 limit? The rules as written don't actually mention allowing you to spend AD to exceed the untrained result cap. Of course, you're free to houserule to the contrary. Alternatively if you want to add a bit of spice, you could allow success beyond the cap but also automatically inflict a critical failure (say something along the lines of yes, you somehow manage to get the car over the gap, but you break the transaxle doing it). If the character tumbles through one or more enemy-occupied squares, his DC is 20 + 5 per enemy adjacent to or in his path (including the first); otherwise, his DC is 10 + 5 per enemy adjacent to or in his path (including the first). They both look to be the exact same move, why is one DC lower than the other? In one, he is tumbling through enemy occupied squares, in another he is tumbling through non enemy occupied squares. Concerning Influence checks, what is the Disposition modifier it refers to. I've been to page 373 and the table on 378, but can't find them. The modifier is simply the Disposition score, so if you have a Disposition of +5 towards an NPC you gain a +5 Disposition modifier with certain social checks towards that NPC. Downtime allows a single skill check but mentions two additional checks allowing characters to earn money or Reputation. How many checks can you make? It means 2 additional types of check are available, referring to the 'Earn Income' and 'Foster Good Will' checks further down the page. So you still get one check for the downtime, which can be either a check described in the skill description with the downtime tag or 'Earn Income' or 'Foster Good Will', where you can use any skill (subject to GM approval) to earn money or reputation. }} Category:AnswersCategory:Fantasy Craft